A Summer's Day
by Katah
Summary: Because even when the life is gone, the body still remains. Martel's burial, Kratos-centric. Martel/Yuan, and/or maybe Kratos/Yuan if you squint.


This was actually written _ages_ ago, as a pinch hit for Yuletide last year, I just forgot to upload it until now. My first foray into fic for a long time - and my first ToS fic. Unbeta'd, so concrit would be greatly appreciated. Oh, and apologies for the odd formatting - the scene divisions aren't very smooth with the horizontal line, but I haven't posted here in a long time and so am not that used to the formatting. (Last time I posted here, you could still use an asterisk to divide scenes, if that's any indication.) Anyway, concrit would be greatly appreciated!

* * *

Kratos was the one to bury her.

The fact had occurred to him about three hours before dawn, as he kept watch over their camp. Yuan and Mithos slept – or he thought they slept. He couldn't be certain, hadn't bothered to check, didn't want to. They both wanted to be alone, and Kratos wasn't going to force them otherwise. He'd spent all night keeping watch –fatigue was no concern- and staring into the small campfire, his mind on anything and nothing but Martel. At least in the chaos of that day, there was one thing normal: Kratos was brooding. Or 'thinking', as he preferred to term it.

Of the three who remained (what a ghastly thought), he hadn't been as close to her. Naturally: she wasn't his sister (he had none), nor his fiancée (he had none, thankfully). But she had been a friend, even a confidante. She'd been the balance in their group, the conscience and even voice of reason when Kratos' better senses had failed him.

Morbidly, he wondered if she would have approved of what they'd done to her murderer. He doubted it.

* * *

Kratos buried her not far from the campsite. Close enough so that, while he was digging, he could still see the fire, and return to add kindling when it began to dwindle. On one of these trips back, he thought he saw dull eyes watching him. He kept his gaze averted. If Yuan had seen him, he would surely know what he was doing – someone had to do it.

Kratos knew it had been Yuan, for if it had been Mithos, the younger half-elf would have attacked him in a mad rage for trying to put his precious sister in the ground.

By the time the grave began to resemble its intended form, it was nearing. The only shovel at his disposal was woefully small, meant for tending to gardens, not digging graves. Kratos was beginning to think that Yuan's double-sword would have made a more effective digging tool. Eventually, he knelt. The ground was soft enough so that he could just dig with his hands.

It wasn't the first time Kratos had lost a comrade in battle. He'd been a mercenary since his teen years; death was an inescapable part of the job. Martel, though, had been more than a comrade. He'd never buried someone before.

When the sky turned to grey and then pale blue, it occurred to him that Yuan or Mithos may awaken before his task was complete. Usually, they woke around dawn (by Kratos' command) and left camp several hours after (by everyone else's command). Yuan wouldn't interfere, Kratos was sure of that. The way Yuan had seemed the night before, Kratos would have been surprised if he had even tried to drag himself out of his tent.

Mithos was another story. The younger had always been emotionally volatile (to put it kindly), and loved his sister so dearly. They were practically inseparable; Mithos was ever in a state of childish adoration, and for Martel, he had been all she really had left. Kratos had never asked about their circumstance. Martel had told him anyway.

* * *

When the pit reached about five feet, soft ground gave way to rock. Kratos cursed his bad luck, discarded the shovel and began to lift the rocks out by hand. They were large enough that he had to hold them in both hands, yet didn't weigh too much and were easy to pull out of the ground.

As the grave slowly grew deeper, the rocks became larger and harder to extract. Kratos was aware that of all people, he had the least right to be doing this, laying her grave. She was a friend, it was true; a close friend, one of the few close friends he'd had. But he was not her brother, or her love. The only special understanding her had of her was one that was not clouded by familial or romantic love.

Martel was no mere idealist. She believed whole-heartedly in their goal, of course; she had nurtured it in Mithos, awakened it in Yuan, even in Kratos himself. A world without discrimination. It was a beautiful goal – a distant dream. The road to that goal becoming reality was too long and hard for them to walk alone. They would not live to see their life's works completed. She had known. Maybe she had even-

No. Not even Kratos, the cynic of the group, had foreseen that Martel's end would come so suddenly and ingloriously. They had ended the thousand-year war. They had saved the world. For her life to then be taken by a traitor in a meaningless battle was unthinkable.

When the pit was around six feet deep, the rocks became impossible to pull out. His gloves were torn to shreds, hands bloody. The sun shone high in the sky and the fire smoldered, forgotten by all. The campsite was silent.

* * *

When Kratos returned to the campsite to retrieve Martel's body, Yuan was awake inside his tent. Technically, the tent was both his and Kratos', although since they alternated between guard duty, they were rarely inside at the same time. He was sitting up –Kratos could see the mass of blankets-, but completely still. Kratos didn't interfere.

Martel was light to carry. Kratos already knew this, having carried her body to where it had previously rested. Covered by a blanket, by the fire. A silent ward that had kept either of his companions from leaving their tents. Her body was cold. He took one look at her face –her lips were tinged with blue and stained with dry blood- and quickly looked ahead.

He wondered if perhaps he should have fetched Yuan after all. Kratos had attended only one funeral in twenty-eight years of life, and he had been far too young to remember any of it. His impression of the goings-on was hazy, but a gathering of mourners was the key idea. Kratos cared for Martel, but he was no mourner.

It would be too cruel, he concluded eventually. He felt no guilt for his mercenary work, but he was not prone to wanton cruelty, especially not against the few he considered friends. Besides, a distraught Yuan was a thoroughly alien idea to Kratos, and he grimly suspected he'd need all the coherent support he could get in dealing with Mithos.

Mithos… would be beyond distraught. He would be murderous. Kratos doubted that their brutal slaughter of Martel's individual killer would have been enough to sate that rage.

He set her body down beside the grave and began to wrap her in the blanket. He'd bandaged the worst of her wounds. It had been a wholly pointless gesture; she was dead, the blood had stopped flowing, and their last memories of Martel would still be her dirty, bloody corpse. It meant nothing and would help no-one.

Kratos was stoic, but he wasn't emotionless, and no-one reacted truly rationally when presented with the body of a dear friend. In all his preparations, he never noticed that her Exsphere was missing.

* * *

Filling the grave was easier than digging it had been. The shovel lay completely discarded, dented from where it had first struck rock. Kratos had not bothered to bandage his bloody, dirt-caked hands.

The sun was shining high in the sky, and he was being driven by an urgent if belated need to finish his grim task as quickly as possible. Before Mithos awakened, or Yuan came to investigate. Before the dull ache in his hands became outright pain. Because now when he tried to think of Martel all he saw was dirt and rocks and bright summer days, and he wanted to remember her for more than that.

As he filled the hole and the body wrapped in red cloth disappeared amongst the dirt, Kratos tried to think of listening to her playing her panpipe by firelight, of terrible cooking and beautiful ideals.

* * *

After what felt like an eternity, the grave was filled. There were no remaining stones large and flat enough to serve as proper tombstones, and he had nothing he could use to engrave the stone, so he settled for placing a large rock as at least a marker, however inconsequential.

He'd pushed all the soft earth down first and covered it with a layer of rocks. At the very least, Martel deserved an undisturbed grave.

Kratos stepped back, looked over his work, and realised he had no idea what to do next. Faintly, he realised that he should have said something, but he was no holy man, had not even the vaguest idea of how to conduct a funeral with an attendance of one. He just sighed and turned away.

* * *

To Kratos' relief, by the time he arrived back at camp, Yuan had emerged from the tent and was sitting, watching the smoldering fire. Noishe had settled beside him, occasionally nuzzling him, either out of concern or to remind Yuan that they all could really do with some breakfast. Out of the four of them, Yuan was the only one with any skill at cooking. Mithos rarely tried, Kratos' expertise didn't range far beyond sandwiches and Martel… Martel had been a menace in the kitchen. Kratos frowned.

As if thinking the same thing, Yuan winced, face contorting in pain for a moment before returning to the same emotionless expression. It was disconcerting, but not without just cause. He didn't look up when Kratos sat down across from him. After a few tense seconds, Yuan looked over to where Martel's body had lain.

"Someone needed to." Kratos broke the uneasy silence, falling back into it just as quickly. He tossed his bloody, torn gloves into the fire as human and half-elf alike wondered exactly what they were going to do now.

Silence reigned.


End file.
